Saturday, May 26, 2012

Resource boom in eastern Arizona

What's going on in eastern Arizona? Suddenly the area is a hot bed for more unusual natural resources like potash, carbon dioxide, and helium. Teri Walker, reporter with the Holbrook Tribune-News interviewed me for a storyin yesterday's paper about the looming global helium shortage and the rich deposits in the region. During the interview she commented that for the small towns like Holbrook, these developing projects will have a huge impact. Two companies are moving forward with plans for large underground potash mines outside Holbrook, costing over $ 1 billion each, with the potential for annual revenues of similar amounts [right, core drilling near Holbrook. Credit, Passport Potash]. Kinder Morgan, the nation's second largest pipeline company, announced plans to complete 250 wells in the St. Johns area to produce 400 million cubic feet of carbon dioxide per day and ship it to Texas for enhanced oil recovery projects. And now helium is back in the news.

The next few years may see some of the biggest changes the towns of eastern Arizona have seen since they were founded.

4 comments:

I hope all of this news is true. St. Johns, Holbrook, Snowflake, and other towns around here really need the jobs. We are a bit cautious, however, since we have been led down this road before, just to be disappointed in the end. We will continue hoping and praying that this is all going to come to fruition soon. There are good, hard-working people around here that sure could use the employment!

Screw your jobs!!! I am sick of rich assholes thinking they can destroy the land, through mining, fracking, or otherwise, to get more money...I happen to live here in northeast AZ, and thought I had discovered a nice clean place where big corporations hadn't raped and pillaged. I curse you and your children's children.